Saturday, October 22, 2016

the black memory hole

Henry Reynolds has estimated that aborigines killed somewhere between 2000 and 2500 Europeans in the course of the European invasion and settlement of Australia.

He further estimated that at least 20,000 aborigines were killed as a direct result of conflict with the settlers. If anything, the latter estimate errs on the side of caution.

Henry Reynolds claims that he was the first person who tried to quantify the aboriginal death toll. His estimates were first published in The Other Side of the Frontier in 1981 (amazon, review by Humphrey McQueen)

Why are we never told these figures? Why isn't it part of the school curriculum? Our memory of these events has disappeared down a black hole.

Many Australians don't want to look at the dark side of our history. A veil is drawn.

But if these bodies had been white then our history would be full of their story, monuments would be everywhere to celebrate their sacrifice. As we do on Anzac Day.

Henry Reynolds goes onto to document figures that reveal that in the north of Australia twice as many blacks were killed in a 70 year period (1861 to 1930s) as whites (Europeans) were killed in the five wars between the Boer War and Vietnam war, a different 70 year period.

Don't these figures reveal that the black wars were the most significant in Australian history?